On the Appeal of the German Independents[3]

Written:Written in the second half of February 1919Published:First published in 1933 inLenin Miscellany XXIV.

      Printed from the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      2nd English Edition,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 42,

      pages126b-127a.Translated:Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:D. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Weseldom have a chance now of receiving foreign newspapers
in Russia: the blockade with which the “democratic capitalists” of the
Entente have surrounded us is apparently operating effectively. They are
afraid to acquaint the educated workers of America, Britain and France with
ignorant and uncivilised Bolshevism, they are afraid lest people in this
land of uncivilised Bolshevism get to know of its successes in the
West.

Butdespite the zealous efforts of the gendarmery of the new Holy
Alliance to suppress it, the truth will out!

Theother day I happened to see several numbers of the Berlin newspaperDie Freiheit, the organ of the so-called “independent” German
Social-Democrats. The front page of No. 74 (for 11.11.1919) carried a
lengthy appeal “To the Revolutionary Proletariat of Germany” signed by
the Central Committee of the party and its parliamentary group. The ideas,
or rather the lack of ideas, underlying this appeal are so characteristic
of not only the German, but of the world’s labour movement, that they
deserve to be dwelt upon.

Butfirst I should like to make a digression connected with personal
reminiscences. Among the signatures of the parliamentary group of
Independents I came across the names of Seger and Laukant, and they
reminded me of what happened three years ago. I had occasion to meet
Laukant at a meeting of the Zimmerwaldists in

Berne.[4]This seemingly influential Berlin worker produced a dual
impression: on the one hand, serious revolutionary work among the masses,
on the other, an astonishing lack oftheoretical[1]and appalling short-sightedness. Laukant did not like my sharp attacks on
Kautsky (the ideological “leader” of the Independents, or rather leader
of their non-ideology), but he did not refuse to help me when, doubtful of
my unreliable German, I showed him the text of a short speech in German I
had

			      written,[2]in which I quoted the statement of the “American Bebel”, Eugene Debs, to
the effect that he would rather be shot than agree to vote for imperialist
war loans, and that he would agree to fight only in a war of the workers
against the capitalists. On the other hand, when, with furious indignation,
I showed Laukant the passage from Kautsky’s article in which that gentleman
denounced the workers’ street demonstrations as

adventurism[5](and that under Wilhelm II) Laukant shrugged his
shoulders and answered with exasperating coolness: “Our workers don’t read
this as attentively as all that! I’m not obliged to agree with every line
of Kautsky’s, am I?”

[1]Apparentlythe word “interests” or “knowledge” has been omitted in
the manuscript.  —Lenin

[2]SeeVolume 22 of this edition,pp. 125-26. —Lenin

[3]Lenin’sunfinished article “On the Appeal of the German Independents”
was written in the latter part of February 1919.

Theappeal is criticised in § 21 of Lenin’s theses
on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat (see present
edition, Volume 28,p. 467).

[4]Leninis referring to the meeting of the enlarged International
Socialist Commission (Internationale Sozialistische Kommission)
held in Berne on February 5-9, 1916. It was attended by 22 delegates from
the internationalists of a number of countries: Germany, Russia, Italy,
Norway, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Rumania. Lenin took an
active part in the proceedings. The meeting adopted an appeal ’To All
Affiliated Parties and Groups” denouncing the participation of socialists
in bourgeois governments, the slogan of “Defence of the fatherland” in
the imperialist war, and voting for war loans; it pointed to the necessity
of supporting the labour movement and preparing mass revolutionary action
against the imperialist war. The appeal, however, suffered from
inconsistency in that it failed to demand a break with social-chauvinism
and opportunism. In voting for the text of the appeal, the members of the
Zimmerwald Left declared at the meeting that although they did not consider
all its points satisfactory, they were voting for it because they regarded
it as a step forward in comparison with the decisions of the First
International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald. The meeting fixed the
date for convening a second international socialist conference.

[5]Thereference is to Kautsky’s articleFraktton und Parteipublished inDie Neue ZeitNo. 9 for November 26, 1915